Current Events - World Events 2013

Current Events - January 2013

04.Signs of reconciliation
between Hamas and Fatah as Hamas allows Fatah rally in Gaza.

05. Taliban warns of a prolonged
war in Afghanistan if any foreign troops stay after 2014· Beijing puts into
operation four subway lines with a combined length of 70 km making the Beijing
subway system the world's longest • Sania Mirza partnering American Bethanie
Mattek-Sands takes the Brisbane International women's doubles title.

07. Obama's nomination of Charles
Hagel as his Defence Secretary and John Brennan as CIA director stirs up
controversy • Lionel Messi wins Bailon d' Or for best footballer of the year
for a record fourth time. OS. Indian origin politician Halima Yacob is set to
become the first woman Speaker of Singapore's parliament • The Milky Way is home
to 17 billion Earth-sized planets, one in 7 of these is habitable, astronomers
say.

15. Crisis in Pakistan as Supreme
Court orders arrest of Prime Minister ParvezAshraf. Talks of coup in Pakistan •
Ex-Attorney General appointed Chief Justice of Sri Lanka but Bandaranayake says
she is still Chief Justice.

18. Lance Armstrong confesses to
taking drugs to win all of his Tour de France titles.

19. 140 countries agree to limit mercury
use in world's first treaty on mercury in Geneva.

24. British PM Cameron tells
European Union not to force Britain to join it.

26. Twenty one people sentenced
to death for football violence in Port Said, Egypt last year. Victoria Azarenka
retains women's singles title at the Australian Open beating Li Na of China.

27. Former left-leaning PM Milos Zeman
is the first directly elected Czech President· World No.1 Novak Dhokoric takes his
third successive Australian Open men's singles title overcoming World No.3 Andy
Murray in 4 sets.

30. Former presidential candidate
John Kerry confirmed as U.S. Secretary of State • Israel becomes the first country
to boycott a United Nation (U.N) review of its human rights practices.

Current Events - February 2013

01. Blast hits u.s. Embassyin Turkey·
Dow Jones Index climbs to 14,000 points for the 1st time since the Great
Recession • Warm welcome to French President Hollunde in Malian town Timbuktu,
recaptured by French and Malian forces' from Islamists after 10 years • Iran develops
fighter jet

02. Iran accepts U.S. offer of
talks to end standoff.

04. Rajapaksa rules out autonomy to
Tamils of North Lanka. Afghan peace deal in 6 months • Britain unleashes hand-held
drone to fight Taliban • Match fixing at club and national levels uncovered by
European investigators.

06. U.s. drone base in Saudi
Arabia reported • Portrait of Picasso's lover sold for 28.6 million in a London
auction.

16. History is created in
Pakistan as the PPP-led civilian government and the National Assembly complete
their full 5-year term.

17. Xi Jinping, who took over as the
new Chinese President on March 16, spells out the dream of making the country
strong without seeking hegemony. • U.S. journal Time announced that 'Bobby' Ghosh,
an Indian, would be Editor of Time International.

18. A Swedish think tank says
India has emerged as world's leading buyer of weapons and China, the largest
seller.

19. Russia says that the
scrapping of U.S. missile shield for Europe did not address Russia's concerns.

20. Belgian mathematician Pierre
Deligna selected for this year's Abel Prize, which is equivalent to the Nobel
Prize • Malala Yousufzai, the 15-year old Pakistani girl, who survived a deadly
Taliban attack on last October, returns to school in Birmingham.

27. Fifth BRICS summit ends in
Durban with decision to set up a development bank.

28. The 198 member states of the
UN are on the verge of approving an unprecedented global arms trade treaty •
U.S. deploys B-2s over South Korea, describes it as 'deterrence mission.'

30. Kenya Supreme Court upholds
election of Uhuru Kenyatta as the country's next president • Anti Morsi
protests rage across Egypt against the president's ways of flouting legal norms
to implement his agenda.

Current Events - April 2013

03. North Korea blocks access to
Kaesong Complex, a key joint industrial zone with South Korea.

04. US boosts missile threats
after Pyongyang says it has cleared its military to use light nuclear weapons.

05. Seventeen-year old Paris Brown
is appointed UK's first youth Police and Crime Commissioner • Best-selling British
soprano Sarah Brightman set to become
only the 8th space tourist and by far the most famous 'civilian' space traveller.

06. UN Human Rights Chief calls on
Washington to close down Guantanamo Prison.

16. Strongest earthquake in 50years
in the border of South east Iran kills at least 35 and jolts Pakistan India and
the Gulf states.

17. Margaret Thatcher given the
grandest funeral for a British PM in half a century at a cost of 10 million
pounds.

19. Former Pakistan military ruler
Pervez Musharraf in police custody • NASA says two planets orbiting a star are inhabitable
with chances of water • Taliban's
shooting victim Malala Yousufzai named among 'Time' magazine's most influential
people in the world.

22 Netherlands company' Mars One'
is planning to send 4 astronauts to Mars and set up a colony on the Red Planet
by 2023.

23. Historic Umayyad Minaret in Aleppo
destroyed in Syrian civil war • A new strain of Bird Flu that has killed 22 in
China is described the most lethal « Whereabouts of the two bishops abducted in
northern Syria remain unknown.

Current Events - May 2013

01. Musharaff arrested over
killing of Baloch leader Akbar Bugti in a 2006 military operation. US national Kenneth
Bao sentenced for 15 years hard labour in North Korea for" hostile action"
against the
government.

04. China bolsters military's
role on its western border including regions bordering India -India is considering
more investments in Iran.

06. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib
Razak begins a second term after his National Front coalition wins the elections.

07. A string of Israeli air strikes
on Syria threatens to expand the geographical boundaries of the Syrian conflict
• In an annual report to the U.S. congress, Pentagon says that the Chinese
government is responsible for cyber intrusions.

08. U.S., Russia agree on Syria
peace process.

09. Former Pakistan Prime
Minister Gilani's son Ali Haider Gilani abducted from a poll-related meeting in
Multan • Afghan President Hamid Karzai says US will maintain 9 military bases
in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of US forces in 2014.

10. Pakistan gears for its first
ever election under civilian watch.

12. Nawaz Sharif set for third
term as Pak Premier as his party Pakistan Muslim League - N wins an unassail- able
lead. English Premier League team Manchester United bids farewell to their manager
for 21/2 decades, Sir Alex Ferguson· Shooting at Mother's Day parade in New
Orleans, USA kills 19.

14. Russia detains an American
spy from the U.S. embassy in Moscow, orders expulsion.

15. A UN report says that international
sanctions have curtailed North Korea's ability to push ahead with its nuclear
weapons programme. A geophysicist says that melting of polar ice sheet and mountain
glaciers with rising sea level has caused the North Pole to drift towards east.

16. U. N. General Assembly passes
a resolution calling for political transition in Syria.

18. Russia decides to supply
weapons including S-300 missiles to Syria in a bold attempt to save the regime.
Hardliners in Afghan parliament blocks the passing of a law banning violence
against women.

20. Sectarian violence in Iraq kills
79 persons in a day, 224 persons in less than a week.

23. China says it will go ahead
with building infrastructure in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir despite India's concerns.
Eighty year old Japanse Yuichiro Miura, a former extreme skier becomes the oldest
man to climb Mount Everest.

24. Organisation for African
Unity (OAU) observes the golden jubilee of its founding under its current name 'African
Union.'· Pakistan feels relieved by Obama's new drone policy